"The game I play is a very interesting one. It's imagination in a tight straightjacket, which is this: that it has to agree with the known laws of physics. [...] It requires imagination to think of what's possible, and then it requires an analysis back, checking to see whether it fits, it's allowed, according to what's known, okay?"

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The South Pole’s IceCube detector catches a ghostly particle from deep space, and how rice knows to grow when submerged

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A detection of a single neutrino at the 1-square-kilometer IceCube detector in Antarctica may signal the beginning of “neutrino astronomy.” The neutral, almost massless particle left its trail of debris in the ice last September, and its source was picked out of the sky by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope soon thereafter. Science News Writer Daniel Clery joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the blazar fingered as the source and how neutrinos from this gigantic matter-gobbling black hole could help astronomers learn more about mysterious high-energy cosmic rays that occasionally shriek toward Earth.
Read the research.
Sarah also talks with Cornell University’s Susan McCouch about her team’s work on deep-water rice. Rice can survive flooding by fast internodal growth—basically a quick growth spurt that raises its leaves above water. But this growth only occurs in prolonged, deep flooding. How do these plants know they are submerged and how much to grow? Sarah and Susan discuss the mechanisms involved and where they originated.
This week’s episode was edited by Podigy.
Listen to previous podcasts.
[Image: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab; Music: Jeffrey Cook]